Help me decide on my next laptop...11.6 or 14??

LoneRonin

LoneRonin

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First off lets stick to the two options here because I'm ordering direct under our business account...no HP, Mac, VAIO, blah blah blah. Both machines run Windows 8.1 out of the box. I am not a high performance user or computer gamer. I just do the normal stuff; movies, browsing, MS office, music etc. My last two laptops have been 11.6 HP netbooks. These were kinda like the Ninja 500 of the laptop world...HD displays, 2-4gb ram and more power than the little netbooks but not a proper notebook either. It was fine for most of what I did but I noticed lag when watching youtube videos in HD or having a video running in the background and surfing the web. I never tried but I'm sure they'd **** a brick trying to run a half decent game.

The main reason I went small was portability, being on my bike most of the time they easily fit into my Ogio bag without any bulk or excess weight (about 3.5 lbs), however I kind of like having a proper display and full size laptop when having to do work. This will be my primary computer but I also have access to 15.6 Dell at home most of the time, no desktop. I water damaged my HP and have been using this 15.6 Dell, its what's been wanting me to go with a bigger sized computer. I'd have kept it as my primary one but being a business class laptop meant to be on a dock its just too bulky to take out of the house without carrying it in a bag of its own. There were also 12 and 13.3 XPS models but they lack HDMI which is very important to me. So the competition is between the following two, tbh specs mean jack **** to me...I'm on a 1.5 year old i5 with 4gb ram and find it sufficient but I guess you can never have a computer that's too fast.

Inspiron 14 7000: This is Dell's latest top of the line Inspiron using an aluminum chassis and a full HD touchscreen display. It looks a lot like an XPS model.

Tech Specs:
4th gen i7 4500 processor
8 gb ram
500 gb hd
1920x1080 touchscreen display
4.5 lbs approx.

I have the option of financing interest free for the first 6 months and then I'll just pay it off in full so no interest is accrued.

taxes included:

$1,018.68
$1,074.05 (1 year accident coverage)
$1,298.92 (3 year accident coverage)
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XPS 11: This is a fully featured laptop than can convert to a tablet form

Tech Specs:

4th gen i5 4210 processor
4gb ram
128 gb SSD
1440p touchscreen display
2.5 lbs approx.

With this model you get a 12 month interest free period.

taxes included:

$1,470.68
$1,531.70 (1 year accident coverage)
$1,852.62 (3 year accident coverage)

*Subtract about $200 if I downgrade to a i3 model.

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Still not big on the whole touchscreen laptop thing, but it's here to stay I guess. If it's your primary computer, I'd say go big. I like to go with small laptops because they are always travelling with me... but I also have a separate desktop that I mainly use. Also I like to buy off-lease enterprise laptops - cheap, easy to fix and mountains of parts available on eBay. My Dell D620 has lasted a longer longer than I expected it to, getting to the point where I may need to replace it because it can only take 4GB of RAM.

Make sure you're being honest with yourself about how you're going to use it, though. 90% of people I see with laptops the machines never leave the living room, which is fine but means a lot of stuff like battery life and portability means absolutely nothing.
 
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If you plan on using it regularly and moving it around with you every day, then I'd say go with the smaller option. Simply because of space, and the weight can get old carrying it around all the time.

I've had a larger laptop from work and hated it when I went flying around. Now I have a smaller lighter one and it's much better. They both suck though.
 
Touchscreen is really only good if you do presentations (can annotate onscreen) or your laptop can convert to a tablet. Mine has/I do both and I use the touchscreen all the time otherwise I wouldn't miss it I don't think.

Portability is still a key issue for me unless you know your laptop is never going to leave a particular room, in which case I'd get the biggest screen, most powerful laptop I could and weight be damned. For a stay-put laptop I'd make sure I had a really capable video card in it.
 
Why not meet in the middle and get an XPS 12? At least that way you'll have a full sized keyboard, it's light enough to carry with you and has the features.
Also because you're running windows 8, touchscreen is a must for navigating through the damn thing.
 
nfq said:
Why not meet in the middle and get an XPS 12? At least that way you'll have a full sized keyboard, it's light enough to carry with you and has the features.
Also because you're running windows 8, touchscreen is a must for navigating through the damn thing.
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No HDMI, same thing on the 13...****ing clowns got 11,12,13,14...wtf?? Just focus on two models.
 
LoneRonin said:
No HDMI, same thing on the 13...****ing clowns got 11,12,13,14...wtf?? Just focus on two models.
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Yeah that's silly.

One of my machines is the Dell Vostro 131. 13" and has HDMI. It's silly that you need an adapter to get that feature on the XPS 12.
 
nfq said:
Yeah that's silly.

One of my machines is the Dell Vostro 131. 13" and has HDMI. It's silly that you need an adapter to get that feature on the XPS 12.
Click to expand...

Why bother with HDMI, can't you just stream it to a PS3 or similar? Or get that Google doodad that acts like Apple TV.
 
This seems like an easy fix to get the best of both worlds; get he small laptop and combine it with a large screen when you're at home?
 
I have a 15 Mbp as my primary computer (which lives on the couch most of the time) and have vaio 11, crappy 15 and quadcore i7 17" laptops for work. The 11 gets the most use (and was the most expensive). If you are moving around, the difference in size and weight is huge. For photo-editing or hardcore spreadsheets, it's cramped, but an external monitor solves the problem.

If you plan on carrying it around, buy the 11.
 
Get an older ace aspire with windows 7. much less problems. btw they have backpacks with a padded section for laptops.
 
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